TechPowerUp Survey: Over 25% Readers Game or Plan to Game at 4K Resolution

[PopcornMachine]

I'm not sure it is necessary to explain a 75% to 25% poll. Anyone who know statistics know what that means.

75% of those responding currently have no interest in 4K.

Don't get the need to try and spin it in the other direction.

 

[Blueberries]

Right now, I only have a work display that's truly been created for super clear and accurate text, not for gaming. But I could use a 55in 4K Samsung TV we are moving into the guest room.

I'm using a Samsung 4k QDOT I got on a black friday deal last year and it's the best picture I've ever experienced for gaming or cinema. In my opinion it looks better than OLED.

I'm not sure it is necessary to explain a 75% to 25% poll. Anyone who know statistics know what that means.

75% of those responding currently have no interest in 4K.

Don't get the need to try and spin it in the other direction.

I'm not sure it's that simple, given an apples to apples comparison I believe everyone would be interested in 4k if it was a free upgrade. While there was limited content in TV to persuade people to purchase higher fidelity satellite and receiver systems there is plenty of 4k content for gamers... the restriction is instead the cost of display and output components. Right now 4k is incredibly taxing on GPUs, not because of the throughput of current architectures but because of the multiplicative nature of resolution expansion... people expect the same settings they needed to achieve a feigned 4k resolution at 1080p at 4k even though they're now displaying the same number of pixels natively.

 

[spnidel]

UWHD >> 4K

"lower resolution is better than a higher resolution!"
these posts make me laugh, makes it so clear that people saying stuff like that never actually tried the thing they're shitting on
ignorance is such an awful trait quite frankly, try something before you start taking a massive fuckin dump on it like you know what you're talking about

 

[INSTG8R]

I dunno I’ve been gaming at 2K for a couple years now and I think it’s the sweet spot. I have a 4KTV and watched plenty of the 4K programming available and frankly I don’t see the big deal. It’s just MOAR pixels.

 

[RichF]

Well, what I see is a move away from 4K just as much as people moving towards it. Why? GPU prices. Its not affordable and practical.

Close.

The move away is to 8K. The propaganda for that started two years ago, with articles about the lovely "painted-on" graphics (articles we were reading on non-8K screens to view those "painted-on" graphics).

Someone mentioned the uptake of 4K TVs... Well, if the TV industry hadn't duped the public there would have been a transition from 720 to 1440, and no 1080. That would have made 4K a non-starter, since it's unnecessary and undesirable for TV viewing, in comparison with 1440. This is due to diminishing returns in image quality at normal TV viewing distances as well as the drawbacks of dealing with the extra data. Computer screens can benefit from 4K because of closer distances but I'd rather see higher-quality rendering of an elaborate game world at 1440 than a lower-quality rendering at 4K. I haven't played AAA games lately but I am still under the impression that we haven't really come close to passing the uncanny valley. Ray tracing is in the teething stage at best.

Apparently we do need 16K (8K per eye) for VR, though — to make the pixels invisible. That's according to the scientist AMD hired a while back. Good luck with that. I've read a rumor that Navi is going to be a midrange-targeted design, possibly due to a greater focus by AMD on consoles. Perhaps Sony and MS realize that they can't peddle horridly underpowered generic x86 boxes forever and must try to make consoles at least reasonably impressive again.

 

[silentbogo]

Been on 4K for nearly 2 years now. That's the best upgrade I've made in recent years.

I'm planning to game at 4K60 when a 4K60 monitor priced around $300 AND a graphics card can run games at 4K60 with highest or second highest setting reliably priced around $300, otherwise I'll stick with my current setup until it can't run 1080p60 at medium setting reliably only then I'll upgrade my PC

Depending on the games you play it may actually be doable today.
I bought my Samsung for around $360 back then. Today there are many adequate options for 4K60 in your budget.
The best one for work and play is probably this one:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0JC-0004-005E6
There are also questionable options, which at least on paper offer best of both worlds (e.g. working at 4K 60Hz or gaming at 1080p 144Hz):
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA90V86V3263

Regarding GPUs, it depends on whatever you play. I have a GTX1060 6GB and my Steam library is mostly a bunch of pre-2014 titles with a dash of some new stuff.
Nearly 70% of my games are playable in 4K 60Hz at High/Ultra settings. The only few regrettable exceptions are Witcher 2/3 and DOOM, but those run just fine in 2K with some tweaking.

 

[RichF]

Been on 4K for nearly 2 years now. That's the best upgrade I've made in recent years.

From 1080?

There are also questionable options, which at least on paper offer best of both worlds (e.g. working at 4K 60Hz or gaming at 1080p 144Hz)

What about 1440? It seems that most people agree that 1080 is too low a resolution to be ideal. That's why I think TV makers went to it instead of to 1440, so they could sell 720, then 1080, then 4K — instead of reaching a point where TV sets looked good enough in just two iterations (720 and then 1440).

 

[RH92]

my wallet is currently telling me 1080p is superior...

Well your wallet is lying to you . Higher resolutions are superior no matter how you look at it ........ you ability or not to be able to afford it is another story !

 

[InVasMani]

The amount of money needed at 4K to constantly be at the bleeding edge just to be able to continue to sustain 60fps with all visuals on max as new more intense games come out is just not realistic with the reality of life and responsibilities as one gets older.

Real PC gamer's that have been doing it for years are pretty adaptable to lowering a few settings to eek out more performance and you would have to do the same thing on a higher refresh rate display as well to sustain that refresh rate. I'm not going to argue it isn't expensive if you want to max out visual details at the highest resolutions and refresh rates possible though in either case that's pretty much a given and true and always generally has been and will continue to be as developer push the limits of graphical quality.

 

[micropage7]

I'm not sure it is necessary to explain a 75% to 25% poll. Anyone who know statistics know what that means.

75% of those responding currently have no interest in 4K.

Don't get the need to try and spin it in the other direction.

hahaaa.. it's like when you buy graphic card and it said overclocked edition but it's just overclocked 2%

 

[rtwjunkie]

Real PC gamer's that have been doing it for years are pretty adaptable to lowering a few settings to eek out more performance

So much wrong with this. First, the implication I might not be a “real” PC Gamer. Second, why should I have to lower settings? I want to see any game, no matter how good or bad it is visually, as the dev made it for me to see.

If one games at a lower resolution, like 2560x1440 then the frequency of having to replace high end hardware is reduced a little. With 4K, you may start out each new GPU gen, for instance, with a new card unable to play all the newest titles at 60fps. Man, that’s not a good place to start out when you still need that hardware to last at least a year.

 

[eidairaman1]

"lower resolution is better than a higher resolution!"
these posts make me laugh, makes it so clear that people saying stuff like that never actually tried the thing they're shitting on
ignorance is such an awful trait quite frankly, try something before you start taking a massive fuckin dump on it like you know what you're talking about

At this time anything less than 4K will have smoother frame rates, 60 is very minimum truly.

PS read the forum guidelines before posting crap again.

 

[silentbogo]

From 1080?

Yep, had the cheapest 22" LG monitor, which was also on ridiculous sale when I bought it.

What about 1440? It seems that most people agree that 1080 is too low a resolution to be ideal. That's why I think TV makers went to it instead of to 1440, so they could sell 720, then 1080, then 4K — instead of reaching a point where TV sets looked good enough in just two iterations (720 and then 1440).

Probably the same reason why 900p never picked up beyond PCs and laptops, and maybe because with all the pixel densities of other devices it costs about the same to manufacture a 2160p panel as a 1440p panel. Plus, regardless of what TPU snobs may say about it, there is a huge demand for 4K everywhere (even if it makes no sense logically). Basically we are at the point where an uber-hi-tech 5.5" 4K display from SHARP costs nearly half of what it was just a couple of years back (and that's a device with a friggin' 800+ PPI density!). Less dense devices (e.g. laptop screens, monitor LCDs etc) have even higher relative price drop. That's why you see 4K everywhere. Hardware may not be able to push it all the way in 3D, but manufacturers are making tons of LCD displays and they have to sell it en-masse (and make more $$$ with higher margins).

If one games at a lower resolution, like 2560x1440 then the frequency of having to replace high end hardware is reduced a little.

But it's not like all of the sudden we've lost the ability to switch our games to lower resolution, if the performance is not satisfactory. I've dealt with that before, when I got my very first FHD LCD monitor and Crysis would become a total stutterfest at that res on my old GTX275 or 2x4850 CF (or even any flagship GPU of that time).
We've been in the exact same situation before, some of us simply forgot about it.

 

[TheDeeGee]

Maybe once a single Midrange Card can manage 60FPS.

15 years from now?

 

[kanecvr]

A 27 to 32" 4k monitor + 4k @ 60(ish) fps capable video card cost as much as a second hand car, so no thank you. Until prices drop significantly, I'll be staying at 2k (Dell u2713h + GTX 1080)

 

[Tomorrow]

Speaking about myself i can't go back from 165Hz to 60Hz regardless of resolution. I'm at 1440p now and plan to stay here for the forseeable future. 4K 100Hz has just come out but it costs more than 3 times as much for what i paid for 1440p 165Hz G-sync IPS which in on itself was expensive at over 800€. 4K 100Hz costs over 2500€ which is ridiculous amount of money.

And suprisingly it's not the games where i notice the high refreshrate the most. It's actually normal desktop usage that is so much snappier and smoother day to day.
4K has several problems. Cost is only one of them. 60Hz limitation and the UI scaling issues at anything smaller than 34" 4K make it a pain to deal with.

Even if i were not gaming at all i would still choose high refreshrate 1080p or 1440p over 4K every day.

 

[Fierce Guppy]

I've got both in my system, 4K and an ultra wide. For me there's no comparison, ultra wide just owns for gaming.

That's what I want in the future, after improvements in the display interface specs, and maybe a couple of 3080 Tis. Which monitor do you prefer for games like Battlefield and WW3?

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

That's what I want in the future, after improvements in the display interface specs, and maybe a couple of 3080 Tis. Which monitor to you prefer for games like Battlefield and WW3?

That's in truth the problem with this debate HERE ,were all enthusiasts.
I game at 4k and have happily with one Rx 480 niw a vega all just fine i assure you , freesync works great at 45/75 fps range, perfect for 4k.

But i and i think a fair few here would all day's be happy to try

Ultra wide-screen

High hertz

All both at the same time or 4k high hz.

We don't represent the majority so much debate ensues, truth is we're all so far away from the majority's perspective were effectively clueless.

 

[Hockster]

That's what I want in the future, after improvements in the display interface specs, and maybe a couple of 3080 Tis. Which monitor do you prefer for games like Battlefield and WW3?

For pretty much everything it's the UW. I'm a fan of the wide FoV.

 

[Fierce Guppy]

That's in truth the problem with this debate HERE ,were all enthusiasts.
I game at 4k and have happily with one Rx 480 niw a vega all just fine i assure you , freesync works great at 45/75 fps range, perfect for 4k.

But i and i think a fair few here would all day's be happy to try

Ultra wide-screen

High hertz

All both at the same time or 4k high hz.

We don't represent the majority so much debate ensues, truth is we're all so far away from the majority's perspective were effectively clueless.

If the majority's perspective is "to each his own" then that's good, otherwise it is unimportant and has no bearing on my next system build.

For pretty much everything it's the UW. I'm a fan of the wide FoV.

That may be the way to go to avoid distortion using in-game FOV.

 

[Octavean]

A 27 to 32" 4k monitor + 4k @ 60(ish) fps capable video card cost as much as a second hand car, so no thank you. Until prices drop significantly, I'll be staying at 2k (Dell u2713h + GTX 1080)

~28” 4K capable monitors start at about ~$200 USD and some name brand 32” 4K monitors with FreeSync start at about ~$300 USD. This is a significant reduction from ~$1,500 to ~$3,000 4K Monitor prices which were typical a few years ago. There are more expensive 4K monitors to be sure but generally speaking the monitor prices are not the issue. The issue is the price necessary for 4K capable GPUs and the reality is that the upper end of the GPU market has always been expensive.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Ultra Wide makes no sense for whatever use, it's a tool of alienation and for alienated.

It's a way for gamers that need the ultra wide POV to have an edge. FPS, racing and flight sims for starters are the kinds of games that will benefit.

Planning on 2K

When you say "2K" are you saying 1080P? I ask because generally speaking 4K=3840x2160 and 2K=1920x1080..

 

[stimpy88]

Shouldn't the headline have actually read...

75% of gamers don't game at 4K, and don't even plan on upgrading!

Yeah, that does read quite differently to me...

 

[HTC]

Shouldn't the headline have actually read...

75% of gamers don't game at 4K, and don't even plan on upgrading!

Yeah, that does read quite differently to me...

Almost: it should be 73% of gamers don't game at 4K, and don't even plan on upgrading!

But it does indeed read quite differently ...

 

[Ruru]

23" 1080p @ 74Hz atm, 28" or 32" 4K next year..